One of the sentences you definitively don't want to hear as a CEO is "This is complex". It a) smells suspiciously like "I'd rather have a coffe" or b) "We'll have to spend a lot of time and money". However, you, as an experienced CEO, can solve this with a simple answer: "Break it down." Let's see how.
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To be able to solve a complex task at hand, we must first define what it is. A complex task is... well, none comes to mind right now. And that's for a reason: Every complex task, be it a sending a rocket to the moon, introducing a new software product, or setting up an organization of 10,000 people, isn't complex if we attack the problem with right weapons. We need just two of them: Common sense and breaking down.
Now, let's set the problem. Let's say you have to send a man to the Moon. This sounds really scary with so many factors involved and so many things that can go wrong that we are on our way to a nice, exploding headache. But, let's see how engineers solved it. They used a powerful tool of breaking down the problem in many small, manageable problems. And when it's small, it is not a problem anymore, it's just a thing to be done.
They assigned, for example, a team of engineers to make a control panel in the command module. That team was thinking a bit and break down that problem into even smaller problems. The team was then divided into several smaller teams, each of them with their part of the original problem. Those subteams divided problem until they had a list of things to do, and no one looked complex any more. OK, maybe technological challenging, but not something to get a headache.
That same technique we can apply to any task at hand. Divide and conquer. It's that simple.
Now, what about common sense. When you hire a production consultant, you may hear about "a team charter," the Stepladder Technique, Myers-Briggs Personality Testing, the Delphi Technique... With all due respect, such methods are a) great for a theoretical paper but b) excellent source of unbelievable headache. In short: They are forcing you to learn a bunch of new stuff before you even think about your problem from real life. And, thank God, with some common sense, we can live nicely without them.
To put it simply, there are procedures (read: written on the paper) designed to motivate people, to keep them going, to keep them communicating... Now, here's the main question: If you don't know how to motivate people and keep them going, are you a CEO material? Of course not.
So, how we'll solve a complex problem of, say, making a new product? Common sense says "Divide from the top and continue to the bottom." Summon your top executives and let your top engineer take care about the product, your CFO about financing, and your marketing man about public presentation. That's the first step and you divided a complex problem to smaller parts.
Now let each of them divide their problems into smaller parts and assign a team for each part. Here is important to have a frequent and clear communication in all directions: Among workers, inside the team, between teams, between departments, all the way to the top. As soon as one of those smallest, manageable problems is solved, all teams should be informed to track the progress (and to get even more inspiration to work).
Make meetings at regular intervals, keep them short ("Had a problem, solved it," "Have a problem, need help," "Had a problem, chose another direction"), and don't ask your workers to spend half of their valuable time writing down on the paper what they were doing.
Be flexible, use common sense and transfer people from one job to other if you see that would help them, let they choose their own rhythm (as long as it is not all focused on a nearby coffee shop), and take all ideas no matter the level they are coming from.
And one for the go: If you have a half a meter high pile of paper on your desk with endless sections you should fill about your new product, you can use it with a great success in your fireplace. ■